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Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line. KDE libraries will be supplied on both, but the bulk of Novell's interface moving forward will be on GNOME.

I can assure you, most Americans have no idea what GNOME is. Or KDE for that matter.

This is more likely one of those "business" decisions where they decided that they can write closed source GTK applications without having to pay anything. Whether that business decision or not is good is another matter. We can always tell them, "We were going to buy your suse product, but now that the default desktop is GNOME we think we'll try another distribution."

P.S. Plenty of us love KDE. It wouldn't win in the Linux Journal polls otherwise.

We should get on the OpenSuse mailinglist and complain about Novell's abandonment of KDE. Tell them it's a bad business decision to drop a technically superior, well-integrated framework that has a greater, more energetic open-source developer and user community!

Yes, complain on the mailing list. I'm sure lots of angry, poorly spelt flames from the KDE faithful will really change their minds.

Here's a clue for some of the more crazed inhabitants of this board: this change was going to happen from the day that Novell bought SUSE. There was no way in hell that Novell was going to support two desktop codebases. It would be insanity and a software engineering nightmare. Novell wanted SUSE for its Linux expertise (actually they wanted Red Hat, but they couldn't afford it), but SUSE had a legacy of KDE users... and they were not part of Novell's plans. KDE was quietly made a legacy product, while the main development went on with GNOME... then Novell's financials hit the skids. Now they can't afford to keep up the pretense of supporting KDE just to avoid the bad publicity that comes from a bunch of angry zealots running around calling them every name under the sun. So... boom... KDE gets officially turfed out.

That's it. Business decision. Convincing your zealot hordes to run off screeching onto the mailing list that "Novel is eevil and gnome sux" (and don't kid yourself, I've read the contents of dot.kde.org before... that's it's level) will do you no good. Try complaining to Trolltech instead. If you can get them to change their licensing, KDE might be able to try to merge with GNOME in future... and maybe survive (obviously this would require KDE to do a lot of clean up, work to higher coding standards, and pay more attention to security... as well as reduce some bloat... but nothing is impossible).

"Try complaining to Trolltech instead. If you can get them to change their licensing..."

QT is licensed GPL. The GPL is the best Free Software license because it contains strong copyleft provisions that require derivative works to also be Free and Open Source. This is in the interest of users (like me) so I have absolutely no problems with QT or anything else licensed under the GPL.

Why exactly do you care about proprietary, closed source, non-free software anyway? So you can lock users in your product, prevent them from making modifications, restrict their rights, control what they can and can't do with their computers? Proprietary software is immoral, and if that's what you're developing, then you SHOULD be penalized by having to pay licensing fees.

I don't, but I'm not a zealot. I do realise that choice in license in important... KDE doesn't give you that choice, unless you pay TrollTech's tax. Even Richard Stallman realizes that for non-innovative things (such as widget toolkits like GTK and QT -- and this isn't a criticizm, a widget toolkit isn't "innovative" as such), the GPL is a liability, and LGPL exists to fill that gap.

*Proprietary software is immoral, and if that's what you're developing, then you SHOULD be penalized by having to pay licensing fees.

Really? Does that include things like GLIBC? And if you are so fired up about the GPL, why are the KDE libraries LGPL, rather than GPL? If the KDE libraries were GPL you wouldn't be able to write closed-source KDE apps at all... so don't get all high-and-mighty, zealot. Your beloved desktop's licensing is deliberately set up to ensure that in order to drop the GPL restrictions across the entire KDE code base and write closed-source apps, you pay a fee to TrollTech... what a bunch of filthy hypocrites you are. When the KDE project stands up for the principles that fools like you mouth off about, and relicenses its libraries under the GPL, and stops acting as a loss-leader for TrollTech and its commercial QT fee... *then* you can lecture others on the evils of "proprietary software".

Nothing: They both are GPL licensed. And there are two companies behind these two products that base a bussiness on FREE SOFTWARE. They took a HIGH risk freeing their code and that they did it and that they succeded should be highly acknowleged. So if you call a bussiness a tax you dislike making money: Remember: Free software is not about free beer.

Well you claim that KDE has some internal code problems. Hm well KDE 4 is going to improve things as everytime with a major version numer change but Gnome is everytime doing exactly the same (they apparently try to overcome the library hell at the moment with project Ridley), so what's your point beside lame rant?

With respect to technology: I guess you never used KIO-Slaves (yes there exist Gnome-VFS, coded after KIO but it is not that universal usable). Ever used fish:// ? Or did you ever enter the following line into Konqueror: man: or even shorter #. This also works for Info-pages: info:.

And Firefox (which is no Gnome project) now also has such nice Konqueor shortcuts like wp:, gg:, leo:. By the way I like Firefox and to mention a small but brilliant thing: Its yellow background for https was really a good thing and the Konqueor folks liked it and adopted it in no time.

Hm and if I look at DBUS. This technology is coded after DCOP (there is nothing wrong with that and I hope that DBUS is better than DCOP and that it get's finally used by all Gnome apps).

K3b is also not the worst CD-burning app in the world...

No question: Gimp is the best linux pixel graphics app and Inkscape is the same for vector graphics and I longtime used XMMS until amaroK replaced it.

So please forget your Desktop war. KDE always tried to be an integrative Desktop with integrating but not pocketing GTK/Gnome apps. KDE's agenda was always: Take the best free software technology regardless who wrote it and try to integrate it nicly into the desktop. Sadly at Gnome there were attempts to pocket Mozilla and OpenOffice and I hope this failure was something from the past and that Gnome will start doing the same as KDE and focus on an integrative Desktop as well. Freedesktop.org seems to be a good collaboration zone for such a task.

And I'm sure companies selling proprietary products on Linux would like it that way. Let the companies decide if they want to use GTK or Qt for their product. Apparently there is a market for both.

And wouldn't it be nice if they knew that their app integrates in all major Linux Desktops? This is needed for bussiness and not arbitary focus on one true and only Desktop as this focus will fail - there will always be an proprietary app using "the wrong" Toolkit/Desktop and thus a company behind which now looses interest in that distro. So for Novel it is much more wiser not to focus at one Desktop in order to maximize profit but to focus on making both desktops more integrative.

"Even Richard Stallman realizes that for non-innovative things (such as widget toolkits like GTK and QT -- and this isn't a criticizm, a widget toolkit isn't "innovative" as such), the GPL is a liability, and LGPL exists to fill that gap."

"Which license is best for a given library is a matter of strategy, and it depends on the details of the situation. At present, most GNU libraries are covered by the Library GPL, and that means we are using only one of these two strategies, neglecting the other. _So we are now seeking more libraries to release under the ordinary GPL._"

RMS seems to disagree with you.

"Your beloved desktop's licensing is deliberately set up to ensure that in order to drop the GPL restrictions across the entire KDE code base and write closed-source apps, you pay a fee to TrollTech"

I really see no problems with that. If anything, current scheme makes it more appealing to publish GPL'ed software, since you don't have to pay. Other alternative is to fund the developement of Qt (which benefits KDE and other projects, through improved Qt) and buy a license. But unfortunately you can't take advantage of other people's work and not give anything in return.

"what a bunch of filthy hypocrites you are"

No, YOU are the hypocrite. You demand that you must be free to take the work of others, use it for free, and not give anything back to others. You want to earn money from Qt, but you want to deny Trolltech that same right. In my book, that reeks of hypocricy.

When Mandrake first appeared, I moved from Red Hat to Mandrake because they offered a better desktop (KDE). I still find Gnome clunky (like mose experienced Linux users). After reading all the SUSE hype, I wasted 4 days last week downloading 5 CDs of SUSE and all I could get was a command prompt without no sound card or network card configuration. It took 10 minutes to re-format my root hard drive and re-install my favourite Kanotix with the usual symbolic links from my home directory to the data files on my 2nd hard drive. It's light years ahead of SUSE. With Debian package management and KDE, the choice is a no-brainer.

A long expected move I guess - I never expected this big american company to realize the potential "small" SUSE and it's long standing KDE expertise could give them. The local GNOME advocates inside Novell cried loudest as usal and won the internal struggle (if at all there was any).

I don't think when someone states that Novell is throwing away it's desktop products is largely overreacting - GNOME on the Enterprise desktop always seemed like a strange decesion - just being as 'simple' as possible doesn't usually cut it here.

It is sad. Gnome will have to move from C to C++, Java, Mono or something else in the coming years (I suggest sooner rather than later) and this will mean a very long, difficult transition period.
KDE seems more ready for the future and Suse/Novell already had everything they needed with KDE.

Has anyone noticed that they are laying off workers on Mono and Evolution while making GNOME the default desktop - a rather contradictory move, does anyone think?

And the biggest problem facing SUSE at the moment is its font rendering problem. Serif fonts look like crap in SUSE 10. They are the worst I've seen on any Linux distro, ever. I brought this up on OSNews and people referred me to the Freetype patents page.

What's the patent situation in Europe, does anyone know? Would it be possible to launch a fork of OpenSUSE in Europe which uses the bits Americans can't? Or perhaps people could do what Packman does with the MP3's, and produce a free "encumbered" Freetype RPM.

" Enough good distributions that use KDE as a standard, and not as an extra foreign citizen..."

I'm not so sure. Actually I was pretty pleased with SUSE 10.0 and actually considered switching to this, but those plans got smashed this morning (why switch distributions for just one release). But now? There are a few 'nice and easy' distributions like Xandros (main apps aren't KDE) and Linspire (well...), but what else?
To me only three other distiburions come to mind: MEPIS, Kubuntu and Mandriva.

MEPIS is just Debian (sometimes unstable, sometimes stable) - used it for a while, but not beeing a distribution of it's own had it's weaknesses.

Kubuntu is starting to alienate from a true KDE distribution - important settings and stuff are altered from what a trained KDE user might want or expect.

Mandriva - had bad experience with some of their previous releases - when they still were Mandrake and hat a non-year versioning scheme. Is this a good distribution now for someone expecting good and current KDE packages and stuff?

1. MEPIS is Debian with some altering packages, no 'distribution' of it's own
2. Kubuntu is the KDE version of Ubuntu a VERY popular GNOME distribution, so no matter how well Kubuntu does it will always be in the shadow of mighty Ubuntu.

If Mandriva decides to dump KDE tomorrow and go with the big guys - or better yet get's brought by yet another big american company (SUN anyone?) KDE will would really be gone from any kind of large surface distribution that might actually be considered inside a company (enterprise or not).

I'l try to explain with a quote from the article:
"The entire KDE graphical interface and product family will continue to be supported and delivered on OpenSuSE"

So, NLD and SLES will be using GNOME and only the OSS version of SuSE will "continue to support and deliver" KDE. To me this means that there will be no more work done inside Novell to have a well integrated KDE environment 'on top' of SUSE, like it used to be.
The fact that KDE will be there just doesn't cut it imo. That's the same reason I don't use Fedora (ok, among others).

The Novell representative did. But that's propably merely a misunderstanding -> OSS version in my context above means the 'community' release, which to some degree or another is the retail SUSE Linux package as well - oficially tailored at 'early adopters and enthusiasts'.

The Novell representative is an ex-Ximian fanboy trying to make the cuts that have have happened on Mono, Hula and Gnome look better. These people have a long history of this. We'll need to wait some months to see what has happened if anything. Remember Ximian Desktop and Suse when Suse first got taken over?

But isn't it correct that these Ximian guys are now in lead position at Novell's Linux business?

Anyway the loss here isn't Novell per sé, but the last important commercial vendor that relied on KDE. IF there is another soon then there won't be much harm done. If not KDE will lose importance and exposure. IMO the main issue is as simple as that.

The reasoning behind Novell's move is another question though - like some already said it was predictable and I'm sure Qt licensing is part of the deal.

"But isn't it correct that these Ximian guys are now in lead position at Novell's Linux business?"

No, but they like to think they are ;-).

"Anyway the loss here isn't Novell per sé, but the last important commercial vendor that relied on KDE."

Apart from the fact that this is unconfirmed (nothing has happened, no products have changed yet), made when the company is making huge job losses and when you simply can't make statements like that.

"like some already said it was predictable and I'm sure Qt licensing is part of the deal."

Add up the amount of money Novell spend on salaries and resources for people to hack on low-level stuff like GTK, Mono etc. and give it away fo free. Shock horror! Hacking on this stuff is not free for Novell! Now add up the cost of some Qt licenses (or nothing if they're writing GPL software) to do development on top of that same type of low-level development stuff to produce the same types of applications and functionality. The days of Novell pumping money into projects which they give away for free to people so they can develop everything for nothing are long gone, and at some stage the penny will drop.

Not tell me what is cheaper at a time when Novell has to cut costs ;-). Money talks, Novell need cost effectiveness and KDE and Qt are as cost effective as it gets.

Jonathan, the reason I was a bit harsh with Kubuntu (telling it's alienating KDE users or whatever) is somewhat mixed in with personal disappointment of some sort. I actually fell in love with Kubuntu when hoary hit the streets (debian-like and great KDE commitment... yay) and was a bit annoyed by some of the changes done throughout breezy - simple changes only affecting me personally for 5 minutes until I change them.
Yet this kind of stuff means a lot to me since you will always end up working on 'standard installs', be it at the buddies PC you just installed kubuntu to or in the office - so the standard install is where a distribution has to shine and what people will know the distro for.

Add to that, that I just installed SUSE 10 (yeah, did it anyway) because of overall slow performance I have in kubuntu (harddrive related, never able to track it down) and we get some bad mood and a bad comment, no hard feelings ;)

This leads way to far here - let me just say that I'm really looking forward to the next Kubuntu releases and hope it will end up beeing the nice KDE-centric distro everybody wants.

I think the team working on Kubuntu alone is still very small compared to those working on the Ubuntu core and the GNOME part. The more impressive is what was done with Kubuntu so far. And with this decision I'm sure Kubuntu will be allowed to expand.

I think so as well. The small Kubuntu team has proven what it is capable of with the last two releases. They're definitely going their own way and would not halt to wait for Ubuntu when they had the ressources to surpass it.

Yet maybe they just don't have these ressources. All in all Kubuntu is a community distribution in the end. Afaik the main developer (and poster of the original news above btw) Jonathan Riddell is now employed by Canonical (at least for a year) to work full-time on Kubuntu. The announcement linked above shows some more good faith from Mr. Shuttleworth in Kubuntu, but still the ressources are way smaller and maybe not even as organized as those of Ubuntu...

This is my main gripe - it isn't true that there are no good KDE distributions left now - there are a few - but what happened now in my eyes is that KDE is not even a proper option for a company (enterprise or not) anymore since there are no 'big' commercial vendors offering KDE as their first choice.

Well, I'll just try and live with that talking about the "Linux Desktop" will mean GNOME first in the future. Truth is I lost any enthusiasm advocating "Linux"... bah.

> Is this a good distribution now for someone expecting good and current
> KDE packages and stuff?

Yeah, try PCLOS at http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/index.html. Based on Mandriva, but a long way forked now, designed as a desktop that just works out of the box with Multimedia/Java/Flash/Everything. New versions of KDE and apps within days of release, unlike Mandriva. Kernel patched and tuned for reponsive desktop. Good sized repository. Very active developement by Texstar and team. New live-cd version due in the next few days. Try it.

Well, it actually sounds lame, but the "serious" was really meant this way.

I've never (ever) come across any Mandriva support in an area I've been working at that is more or less enterprise related.
If you have "linux support" with hardware or software concerning SAN, Content Management or e-commerce (can't comment on something else since these are the topics I've worked with) this is mostly Red Hat and SUSE. Sometimes there's Debian support.

Maybe this is different with local companies in france, but that's my experience.

SUSE Linux. And don't forget to tell your Novell sales man that you're using it instead of next Novell Linux Desktop because it includes KDE. If customers give this feedback Novell management may reconsider the single desktop strategy very quickly.

Umm; 95% of their existing customers are using KDE and prefer it. Not listening
to that customer base is relatively bad mistake. And just because some high
level manager has emotional ties with the G. Nice.

Kubuntu. Or Debian. I don't know where one of the other posters got the idea that Debian is GNOME-centric. It develops a few utilities primarily for GNOME, but supports KDE *fully*, and often more quickly than GNOME.